♂Michel Girard

Michel Girard (died 1661), of St-Cyr-du-Vaudreuil in Normandy, was the father of Anne Girard, who was baptised there on 10 February 1630 and later settled in New France. He was the tenth great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through his daughter Anne Girard (1630–1710).

Everything known of him comes from his daughter Anne’s entry in the Fichier Origine. Anne went to New France in 1665 as one of the filles du roi^W, the young women sent to the colony under royal sponsorship between 1663 and 1673 to marry its settlers, and her entry names her parents as Michel Girard, “maître charron”, and Françoise de Graffard. A maître charron was a master wheelwright, a maker of wheels and carts. Yves Landry’s study of the filles du roi names the same parents, writing the mother’s name Françoise Graffard. The Fichier Origine lists five brothers and sisters of Anne, baptised at St-Cyr-du-Vaudreuil, today Le Vaudreuil (Eure), between 1623 and 1634, among them her twin brother Gilles, baptised the same day as she was, 10 February 1630. The same entry records that Michel Girard married a second time, to Marie Du Quesné, and that the second marriage had four children between 1641 and 1650; the plague of 1650 took both his second wife and his son Jacques, who were buried two days apart, on 2 and 4 November 1650. Jacques was fifteen. Michel Girard was buried at St-Cyr-du-Vaudreuil on 7 August 1661, four years before Anne left for New France.